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SEATTLE - Cornered, outnumbered and fighting for his life, a Seattle man had only a knife - and his wits - to survive a vicious dog attack in White Center.

For the first time, Bob Hedges of Seattle describes how he fought off three dogs - including a bull mastiff and two pit bulls - as they viciously mauled him early Wednesday morning.

Hedges is 66 years old and a Vietnam veteran. He tells KOMO News he survived by telling himself he wasn't going down without a fight.

"I just heard the growl behind me ... I turned and looked - like I say, I listen and look," he says.

Bob Hedges is covered in lacerations from the vicious dog attack early Wednesday morning.

"Multiple bites - you can see most of them on my face and my neck, both arms," he says.

Police say two pit bulls and a mastiff cornered him just down the road from his White Center home as he was out walking.

"They were ready this time. Stomping my feet didn't do a bit. Screamed and hollered again. They didn't do a bit. I pulled out my knife and got ready," Hedges says.

He says the dogs went feral - one yanking him by the pant leg, the other mauling his face - leaving those brutal scrapes and cuts.

"He had a hold of my pants - the mastiff did - and it pulled them down and pulled me backwards," Hedges says. "And the other dog was in front, I was slicing at the other dog in front, trying to get the dog in the back to let go of my pants - that's why he bit my arm."

And Hedges just kept slashing at them with his knife.

"I just wasn't gonna give up," he says. "When the dog got done with me, he knew he had a fight on his hands. He wasn't just going to have an easy kill, I'll tell you that."

Despite his military training and tour as a Vietnam vet, as he laid there in the street, he felt he could die.

The thought had crossed my mind, if I didn't get the blood stopped. There was blood everywhere," he says.

But the survivor - the veteran in him - didn't stop.

"Back in the war days, that's what they teach us. You have to survive," he says.

Hedges says a friend did what he could to help fight the dogs off. He says he has never seen the dogs before - and surprisingly he's not angry. He survived on his instincts - and can't blame the dogs for acting on theirs.

"You can't be mad about something like that. There's nothing you can do. I mean, I'm not happy about being cut to pieces and a bloody mess but there's not much you can do about it. It's just the way it worked," he says.